JDM Prius Steering Wheel

Just an update on my steering wheel. It came today, I'll be putting it on after work today. The box that it came in was in pretty sad shape, but luckily they wrap a nice foam cover over the wood rim parts and pack the whole wheel in a very nice bubble wrap sleeve. The wheel looks great. I'm looking forward to using it.

A big thanks to Elric. His instructions on how to buy the wheel from Rakuten and then using Tenso to ship it worked perfectly.

I'll post photos later.

By the way, total cost with tax, shipping, and fees was just $246 and it took only 12 days from order date to receipt.

'Was able to talk down my winter wheel/tire people to thirty bucks for tie rod end adjustment to align my after market wheel...

7.8k miles on the odometer... according to their computer all was in spec...

'Course it's still off about 1º

OK, just installed it, took less than an hour taking my time. Big thanks to W202MAE for the nice DIY write-up. A few notes:

1) The little yellow tabs on the airbag connectors just pull straight up. Just use a small screw driver to pry them up as shown in W202's write-up.
2) Once you get the nut off the wheel, it feels as though the steering wheel is not going to budge. I was about to get my wheel puller when I gave it a pretty hard jerk and it popped right off.
3) I found it interesting that the stock wheel has a vibration dampener at the top. The weight at the top that is held on with 2 screws is mounted in rubber. These are called Tune Mass Dampers and are used to eliminate vibrations and I re-installed it on the new wheel.
4) The new wheel is a lot heavier.
5) Getting the plastic back cover off the old wheel is a little tricky. You just pry out the clips at the bottom then pull firmly on the top to remove the unit. The top is held on with a couple of plastic posts that go through holes in the steering wheel and then there is a little plastic tab that holds it in. When you pull out, it straightens out the tab so that the post will pull through the hole.
6) I looked up the torque for the steering wheel nut, it's 37 foot pounds.
7) Once I got it all together, I noticed a rubbing sound. It was the back plastic wheel cover rubbing the steering column cover. The plastic cover on the wheel was seated all the way so I just pushed in on the plastic cover on the steering column cover and now there is no more rub.
8) I got really lucky, my steering wheel still lines up down the road perfectly. No need for a front wheel alignment.
9) The wheel looks and feels fantastic! Very nice and easy mod.

Do you have a link to the instructions from w202mae ? My wheel comes in next week. Thanks for the help Glenn.

Page 2 of this thread.

Great thread thanks to all. Now I just need my wife to let me mod her car.

I would like to have one in white!

Yes indeed. It think it reset my preferences in the Nav, though it didn't delete any information. (My phone still synced, numbers were still there, etc.) It did, however, reset the radio. So I had to re-program my stations into the memory, and very strangely, I lost the RDS info. There must be some setting to get it back, but I can't find it for the life of me. How when I see the list of my presets, it just shows the frequency, and not the names of the stations. If anyone knows how to reset that, I'd be much obliged.

I got my steering wheel installed today with Tommy at Music Box in El Monte, CA...I can highly recommend Tommy. He installed all of my stuff from memory and it took 2 hours for all of it.

It looks soo nice and feels much better. I got the same as Glenn and I love it.


PS. I also got the fog lights and turn signal mirrors installed as well. I will post up pics as soon as I wash it.

My new wheel is coming next week. How important is it to get the torque right when tightening the steering wheel nut? How do I measure the torque? Do I have to buy a special socket set?

The above link says that it is sold out, so I am looking at other vendors on Rakuten.

According to this and an email from one vendor, they do ship directly to the United States.
http ://global.rakuten.com/en/help/flow/ (remove space since I have under 5 posts and cannot post the link.)

The one vendor quoted 5,400 Yen or ~$70 to ship, so pretty comparable to the Tenso site previously mentioned.

I will update with final costs, but so far they seem to be spot on with the above.

Also, there apparently are several different types looking at the grip of the sport model. I am looking for the "kuroki or kurogi" eye model which is what I think my co-workers lexus has... like an ash wood.

Looking at the 4 and 8 o'clock section of the wheels, they all seem different. The first also has leather wrapped nubs at 10 and 2.

I have the second wheel, but now I want the first wheel ....Oh well.

The steering wheel feels great and super comfortable in my big hands. I love the big cutouts on the back of the wheel.

Yep, I went with the second wheel as well. The other wheel was at least $100 more. That said, I am sure you could easily find someone here that would take your other wheel off your hands. Especially since you are already States side.

Is yours the piano black or the burl wood like pictured?

You need a torque wrench to measure torque. I am a stickler when it comes to anything in the steering system. You can "rent" a torque wrench at your local Autozone for free.

If you decide to go for the first wheel, I might be interested in your wheel.

I am keeping my wheel...just dont want to spend anymore. I ordered the black pieces that replace the center silver radio control /trip controls. I got the piano black wheel with piano black center pieces.

Do you have a link showing a picture of it? Do they have a version that includes the LKA button (for those of us with the adv. tech package)?

Any pics? of the matching center trim?

After further searching, I've found some other options that I might prefer.

For instance: